You Can T Say That. A frank, gripping and moving - and controversial - autobiography from one of the most idiosyncratic and effective politicians of the last fifty years. His political convictions, his distance from New Labour, and his direct, plain-speaking style and personality have allowed him to survive longer than any of his contemporaries as a man of principle and influence. From his eccentric South London working class childhood to running one of the biggest cities in the world, Livingstone is one of the very few politicians to have scored a major victory over the Thatcher Government and has championed issues as diverse as the environment, gay rights and anti-racism. Written in Livingstone's unmistakable voice, by turns angrily sincere about social justice, wickedly droll and gossipy, and surprisingly wistful about people he has known and loved, this is a hugely important and remarkable book from one of the very few respected politicians at work today.

Promised You A Miracle. In the cold, dark summer of 1981, crowds gathering in Britain's streets could mean a royal wedding - or a riot. Margaret Thatcher's government, taking power on a promise of renewal, seemed in catastrophic decline. Britain remained troubled, inward-looking, run down by recession, transfixed by the threat of nuclear war. Yet, within this bleak landscape, something was stirring. Promised You A Miracle is the extraordinary untold story of Britain's revolution in the head: a shift in mass consciousness in which an old, self-doubting nation was transformed into something else: outward-looking, materialistic, colourful, lonely and cruel. In the early eighties, a new world was messily brought into being: a miner's son transformed the rubble-strewn flatness of London's docklands into a new city centre of high rise and high finance; austere post-punk bands abandoned their leftwing politics and grey overcoats for glossy transatlantic careers; a loose-tongued, PR-savvy young socialist seized London's city hall; and a small start-up in west Yorkshire, in the middle of the Falklands war, made a gadget the size of a gold bar that stopped the British task force from being blown apart. Leading us into these years of brittle optimism and upheaval, Andy Beckett asks why Britain changed so rapidly and fundamentally; what it felt like to be part of this convulsive change - or to be left behind; and how people were swept up in it, sometimes without realising. Yet the effects of this revolution would ripple outwards, across the world - and we are still living with the consequences, happily or otherwise.

Nothing Like A Dame. Presenting an account of one of the strangest episodes in British political history, this book tells of Shirley Porter's wealthy upbringing as the daughter of Jack Cohen, the founder of Tesco, her rise to power in Westminster, about the scandal, and it's aftermath.

The Shard. 'We were told we would never get planning consent and we did. We were told we would never be able to fund it and we did. Then we were told we would never be able to build it and we did.' Irvine Sellar In 2000, Irvine Sellar, a former market trader famous for helping to create the look of the Swinging Sixties on Carnaby Street, stood on a rooftop in Southwark, London, and decided to build the tallest building in western Europe. He had virtually no experience, and he wanted to build at the wrong height, in the wrong place, on the wrong side of the river and at the wrong time. Twelve years later, the Shard, a 'vertical city' designed by one of the world's leading architects, Renzo Piano, changed the skyline of London. It immediately became one of the most instantly recognizable and admired contemporary buildings in the world. This is the story of one man's vision for London and his determination to redefine an ancient but maligned part of the city despite seemingly insurmountable challenges including mass opposition, a huge planning inquiry, the financial crash, and major construction issues that required radical improvisation at every turn. At every twist in the tale, Sellar refused to give up. The Shard is a tale of extreme ambition, innovation and a relentless desire to recast the skyscraper as a force for good.

London S Olympic Legacy. This book provides a unique perspective on the behind the scenes planning of London's Olympic legacy. The author had unprecedented access to the legacy organisations, institutions, and individuals involved with the 2012 Games. This has allowed her, in a highly accessible and engaging style, to capture a sense of the unfolding drama as attempts were made in London to harness the juggernaut of Olympic development, and its commercial imperative, to the broader cause of meaningful post-industrial regeneration in East London. The book argues that London will become the test-case city against which the legacies of all future Olympic Games, and other sporting mega-events, will be judged. The author provides the first in-depth case study of a mega-event legacy planning operation, and sets out a constructive conclusion, which details the lessons to be learnt from London's experience. Exploring the relationship between mega event planning, and post-industrial urban regeneration, this book will appeal to scholars across Sociology, Sport and Olympic studies, Anthropology, Urban Studies and Geography as well as policymakers and practitioners in urban and sport planning.

Down The Tube. Strikes and the threat of strikes, breakdowns, signal failures, crumblingnfrastructure and rising crime - for every Londoner, and many commuters, too,he disastrous condition of London's underground system is a daily reminderf the political and managerial failures that have brought a critical publicervice to the verge of collapse. Now that the Labour government hasommitted the future of the Tube to the Treasury's Public/Private Partnershipcheme, the question is: in 2013 will we see as promised, a refurbished andevitalised system? Or will we be lamenting yet another instalment in a longitany of failure?;Christian Wolmar is not optimistic - indeed, he sees everyrospect of a reprise of the consequences that flowed from the privatisationf the railways, which he analysed in his previous book "Broken Rail". So how,e asks, did we get into this situation? Why was the Tube starved ofnvestment by successive governments over so many years? How did the presentovernment allow it to become a political football, a vehicle for "punishing"en Livingstone for the humiliation he had imposed upon them in London's

Empire Of Fear. Tourists killed in Tunisia; Jihadi John targeted by drone strikes; carnage in Paris; and hundreds of thousands of Syrians risking everything to reach Europe in an attempt to escape the violence. Islamic State’s reign of terror continues. Back in June 2014 Islamic State had launched an astonishing blitzkrieg which saw them seize control of an area in the Middle East the size of Britain. The news was soon filled with their relentless acts of savagery, yet nobody seemed to know who they were or where they’d come from. In this updated edition of his acclaimed book, BBC reporter Andrew Hosken delivers the inside story on Islamic State from their origins to the present day. Through extensive first-hand reporting, Hosken builds a comprehensive picture of IS, their brutal ideology and exterminationist methods. The result is equally compelling and horrifying.

The Communal Gadfly. This anthology brings together more than 100 of Alderman's "Jewish Chronicle" op-eds on subjects as diverse as Jewish Orthodoxy, Ultra-Orthodoxy, Non-Orthodoxy, Islamic Judeophobia, Islamophobia, and Jewish approaches to politics and sex.